This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

The group would accept a reduction in restaurant size to 200 from 400 square metres, addressing the city’s concern some places operate more like nightclubs, said its lawyer, John Nunziata.

Article Continued Below

The association is willing to compromise if the city is willing to move on setting up a working group targeting bad operators, Nunziata said.

The working group, including officials from the police, liquor licensing, building standards and industry, would recommend measures to prevent noise and rowdyism.

“The restaurant industry fully supports efforts to curtail bad behaviour to the point where liquor licences should be pulled, much like a driver’s licence, where you are allowed so many demerit points and your licence gets pulled,” Nunziata said.

Such an approach is better than capping the number, which would mean only seven new restaurants could open along the 1.2-kilometre strip, he said.

A 25-per-cent cap is supported by local Councillor , who notes one in three properties along one section of Queen W. is a restaurant.

Nunziata called Perks “totally misguided on this. He has this notion that the free market shouldn’t apply, that they should economically engineer the economy like they did in the Soviet Union.”

Perks called Nunziata’s comment “bizarre.”

“Any resident is protected by zoning bylaws from a nightclub opening up next to their house,” Perks said.

City planning and legal staff will report on the association’s settlement offer to council, Perks said, adding in the meantime he had no comment on it.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com